Yogurt Shop Murders - 30 Years Later /// Part 2 /// 540 | Forensic Files

[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
listening i'm your host nick and with me as always we close like starsky and hutch here is the captain it's good to
be seen it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend today we got some more of that pickle
beer best made pickle beer by the good folks over at martin house brewing company they have some other versions of
this that i wish that i would have tried while we were there they have a spicy pickle a bloody merry pickle beer but
today it's best made pickle beer by martin house brewing garage grade four and a half bottle caps out of five
cheers to our friends a big cheers is due in fact first up cheers to matt and trina and parts
unknown and a big we like you jib to ashley in greenville tennessee and there's another ashley out there but she
is in rayford north carolina cheers to you well hell let's cheers all the athletes and a big cheers to amanda in
washington dc next up cheers to tyrell and amanda in denham springs louisiana and last but certainly not least we have
a big ron swanson please and thank you that goes out to dr roy from round rock texas everyone we just mentioned they
went to our website truecrimegarage.com and helped us out with this week's beer fund for the beer run and for that we
thank you bwin beer run if you need more true crime garage for your ear balls check out our bonus show
called off the record we love to do case updates every other week and if you're not listening then you're not nasty and
that's enough of the business all right everybody gather round grab a chair grab
a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] uh [Music] [Music] when apd sergeant jon jones was asked
about how he would describe the yogurt shop crime scene he simply said wholesale carnage
now as to the crime scene and how things were found we're going to review that now but keep in mind the uphill battle
for crime scene techs the detectives and the arson investigators this place was a
mess and think back to our trailer at the top of yesterday's show when sergeant jones
wrote a note to the district attorney that said robbery plus sexual assault plus multiple child victims plus bondage
plus gunshot wounds plus fire heat smoke water damage plus no known witnesses equal the homicide arson and da's worst
nightmare put a big underline under fire heat smoke and water damage so obviously smoke heat and fire damage
from the fire the fire at one point getting so hot that the shelving unit melted along with
items on it and because of the fire we're also going to have water damage at the crime scene
one from the powerful blast of the firefighter's hoses but compound that with the fire having caused a pvc pipe
break which was flooding the store before the firefighters were on the scene let's also keep in mind that no
one arriving to the fire is expecting to find murdered victims of course unfortunately you have fatal
fires but here we have an arson set with the purpose of covering up the murders and
the crimes committed between the times of 1103 pm and 11 48 p.m i have said time and time again captain
how much i hate a situation when emergency services are responding to one type of call when in all actuality they
are in fact responding to a scene where much more has gone down it's always difficult for the investigators because
you often cannot undo the actions taken by those responding to the scene like we
know fire destroys evidence water destroys evidence and it's already a difficult crime scene because it's a
public place there's going to be a lot of evidence that there was multiple people in that building at one point
during that day yes and again the responders responding to one type of call and then finding out something else
it always severely hurts the investigative process some examples mara murray they're
responding to a broken down vehicle or a single car accident when this actually was also a missing person
possibly abduction possible homicide yeah or john bernay ramsay they're responding to a kidnapping
not a murder in the house here we have a fire and a fire coming from a restaurant
they likely have responded to many of these types of calls and other local food vendors grease fires or the store
closes and someone simply left a burner on it happens all of the time here we have arson to destroy evidence to
further cloak the killer's identities as they flee into the night well unlike you
said this place is known to close at 11 so when you see that there was a fire and it's almost midnight
as first responders were thinking all this fire happened after people locked up and went home so what else was found
at the scene well in the process of prosecuting two of the arrested four the prosecutor went into a lengthy and
graphic description of the crime scene a little warning here i know this is a true crime show but this crime scene is
particularly gruesome prosecutor robert smith said that firefighters had to break down the front
door of the store because it was locked with the key still in the lock he said firefighters could not see into
the store because of smoke after the fire had been put out they discovered amy ayres body first
and then the bodies of the other three girls ayers was found lying in the middle
section of the store that's his words to be clear this is still the back room but she is found in
the front portion of this back room the other three victims were located at the very back of the store near the melted
shelving unit and the back door amy ayers was found without clothes and on her side face down
near her was an empty cash drawer the medical examiner determined her cause of death to be strangulation and gunshot
wounds to the head a 22 caliber bullet was recovered the other three were found in the back
portion of the store in the back room sarah harbison was found gagged with her hands tied behind her investigators
determined that she had been sexually assaulted smith said her body was extensively burned
eliza thomas was found on top of sarah harbison in a similar manner her body and face were burned beyond recognition
and she was identified by dental records so do they think accelerant was used on
their bodies no and well and that's frankly a difficult question to answer because through
through the course of time the fire investigation and their determinations have changed or been modified let's say over
the years so in the original investigation and i have a good portion to cover this later
there was general thought that there was not much of an accelerant used at all and we'll circle back to that but we
have smith who said that investigators believe that jennifer harbison's body was originally on top of the other two
girls however she was found nearby having been moved either by the fire or the blast of the water hoses and smith
makes it pretty clear to the court that they believe all the girls were dead before the fires were started the
prosecution reasoned that since all had been shot in the head their bodies were moved and stacked as they were all found
face up but that statement isn't completely clear about the crime scene exactly so what he's referencing here
is the bodies of the three girls that were found at the very back of the store because we know amy ayers was found in a
slightly different location she's found face down however the other three girls were found face up leading them to
believe because of the way that they were shot that they had to have been moved after
they were shot and killed because the fire was so intense the crime scene unit had to sift with shovels and screen to
find evidence eventually they found some bullet shells in the corner near the rear door of the store investigators
found a pile of burned clothes included were remnants of denim fabric and clothing from all of the girls as
well as a heart-shaped belt buckle that had belonged to amy ayers however police
teams never recovered the belt that went with this belt buckle a ring that belonged to sarah harbison's
boyfriend was also found so this was a ring that she wore on her finger and she took the time and made the effort to
take that ring off for some reason is what smith says right sarah's wallet was also found there again this is another
indication i don't know if there was money in the wallet but just another example of maybe money's
not the prime goal here yeah i mean this case is very confusing because even just
like having the victims undress what's what's the purpose if you know that you're going to start a fire to try
to get rid of some evidence what would be the purpose of having them undress well the other crimes committed that
night will dictate the purpose of having them undress yeah obviously though the guns used to kill
the girls was a 22 caliber and a 380 caliber weapon they have never been found but could be identified by the
characteristics left on the discharge bullets so we've not located these weapons but if they were ever located
and tested in comparison to the bullets used to kill the girls we would be able to determine
if it was in fact the match well the strangulation feels a little personable to me personable or necessary right so
we have one victim that was that was strangled and but she was also shot twice right so what that tells me is
there's a chance that someone may have thought that she was dead when in fact she was not or maybe
she put up a fight this is going to lead us to hold back information so those of you that have listened to this
show long time listeners you already know what holdback information is however if we have anybody a new
listener maybe somebody from texas that wants to check out our coverage of this case because of the 30-year marker
coming up or maybe just a drunk listener that stumbled onto our show by accident i am fell fell into
our shop fell right into the garage hold back information is pretty simple stuff
it's information that only the experts only the law enforcement agency investigating the case
and the medical examiner's office would know you are simply holding on to this information and holding it back from the
public because especially in a high profile crime or high profile case as is the austin
yogurt shop murders case you will have false confessions and we will have plenty of them in this
case and so it's important to hold back some specific details so that when those
false confessions start coming in you can weed out the persons that did not commit this
crime and we won't go into the psych the psychology of why or who would make a false confession
we pointed that out and went over that quite a bit in our first time around in this case but let's review the holdback
information here captain this was decided on december 7th so the next day the next afternoon less than 24 hours
after the girls were killed the austin police department decides we are going to make a list and they
created a list of 13 pieces of evidence to be held back and those items were number one how and where the fire was
started but do we know where the fire started the fire has always been a bit of a pisser here in this case here
captain you're a pisser for seven years we were told well again they're holding back this information but later we
learned that for seven years the arson investigators all agreed that the fire started on the shelves that
shelving unit that melted now this shelving unit is located near where three of the bodies were recovered
but it's always been believed that the fire started like on the second or third shelf
and was started using things that would easily go up in flames right we have like paper products
on this shelf we also have styrofoam products on the shelving unit anybody that's ever been in cub scouts and
tossed a a styrofoam cup into a campfire you know how quick those babies go up there were also things on this shelving
unit that would have been highly flammable right like paint cans aerosol cans things of that nature right they're
basically using that as their starter when confessions start coming in one thing that i found that was
completely bizarro is that a lot of the confessions we have people saying that the fire was started
on the victims that they piled up the victims and then put some type of accelerant in
several of the confessions they say lighter fluid from like like a zippo can lighter fluid douse the that on top of
the victims and then lit them that seems to that narrative seems to have changed
right around the time that they're looking to convict these four individuals that they arrested the next
piece of holdback information number two the key in the front door we've already
discussed that how they would put the key in lock it from the inside before closing up for the whole night and then
leave through that door and then eventually sliding that key back underneath the door right this is
something that would not be known to many people outside of employees of the icby store number three
how much money was taken we can't say for certain how much money was taken we have in our notes 540 dollars
was missing from that night number four how the girls bodies were arranged so the stacking process and where they
would be located inside the store is valuable information because again we're going to have confessions come forward
and they're not going to be able to put the bodies where they were eventually found but when you have so many first
responders i think you said there's over 50 firefighters at the scene nearly 50 i
don't know how many actually went into the store itself it's a good possibility that some of
this information would be leaked out to the public yes and it absolutely was and austin pd admits that
over the years that they were aware that somehow some of this information got out
in fact but at the end of the day if you're a respon first responder responding to
what you think is a fire and now you're dealing with four women that were brutally murdered
that's something that weighs on you if you end up telling a couple people because you're struggling with that
you know i i know that it hinders an investigation but these first responders are human right
but there's a lot of information on this list that won't be obvious to just somebody responding to the fire right
and the other thing too here we're not sitting on this information pretending that only one person knew the answers to
all 13 of these right we sit here 30 years later and don't know the answers to all 13 of these ourselves wow so but
we still believe that the killer does the killer yes then would have known the answers to these questions or the the
hold back information number five what was used to bind the girls number six that the office was not entered
that's a very interesting one because again we have a situation remember that small office
has a locked door on it and they were able to determine that that door was not accessed so yeah a lot and look a lot of
these back areas they're not like and i don't know what kind of door this would have been but like when i used to teach
and teach guitar lessons in the strip mall like those back office we there were chintzy doors i wouldn't take much to
break one of those down if the door was locked you could huff and puff and blow the door down but but i agree with you
on the sense that i don't know how much stealing money or getting money for this
crime had much to do with anything the floor safe is in the office right even if you don't know that a safe is in this
office if you take 540 or whatever the amount ended up being from the register you're probably looking for some more
cash the office whether you think there's a safe in there or not is the place where
that additional money would be you would at the very least access it and look around hell i worked at a place where we
had a break in overnight they couldn't figure out how to open the safe so they removed the whole entire
safe they just took it with them right and it was located like a week or two later about two or three hours away on
the side of the highway with the door missing so people get creative when they're looking for money here
we got a couple people that are offenders that either aren't looking for money or can't fight their way out of a
paper bag number seven the office key was still under the cash register okay again you
would need this key unless you're gonna huff and puff and blow that door down you're gonna need this key
to get into the locked office right and i cannot imagine a situation where i am holding
guns to children and demanding to know where the money is that one of them doesn't offer up that
here's the key to the locked office in the back no because it was it was company policy to drop the money
at the end of the night it was also a company policy that this is where they would leave their personal belongings so
eliza thomas arrives at work just before 7pm and she places all of her personal belongings inside of that locked office
to which later the next day when they're going through the crime scene they find
all of her personal items still inside of that office yeah i agree that with a gun to your head you're not going
to hold back that information number eight the caliber of weapons used and we know that to be a 22 and a 380. of
course the the whole city is going to know that guns were used the key here is that they
do not know what calibers were used they also would not know that two different guns were used and this is
also something that the firefighters would not know when responding to the scene right and very likely something
that even crime techs and medical examiners would not know until later in the autopsy process but
it's also evidence that points to more than one attacker yep unless you're double fisted we have more than one
killer here number nine the two pairs of the victims underpants were missing never found at the scene now i guess
it's not too hard to believe that they may have just gone up in smoke because we have a fire here but it seems
to me like they're pretty thorough about what was found at the scene and what was
not right number 10 this is key man and this is one that has really stuck with me throughout the
years amy ayers was missing her leather bomber jacket okay so there's a little bit of a story here
from my understanding this bomber jacket was a men's or a boy's bomber jacket and i believe this
belonged to her older brother at one point but it was like one of her favorite things you know something that she wore
this is also another indication that you know this is a a girl coming up and she's realizing hey
i'm going out with friends on a friday night and i'm starting to feel like a real
teenager here because i'm doing you know older kids stuff and so while we say money doesn't seem to be
of the utmost importance to these perpetrators one of them went out of their way to take the leather bomber
jacket from the scene see to me that feels personable it seems like i mean yeah look it could
just be that they fancied that jacket but to me you start leaning to towards the idea
did these attackers take two pairs of the victim's underwear do they take this jacket for
other reasons other than they might just like the jacket could be some kind of trophy
if we're talking about uh serial offender or or otherwise number 11 amy's bruise under her chin from a
blow of some kind so at some point she is struck under the chin with either an item or a fist that left a bruise under
her now one thing we need to point out here captain that's key to this case and to the understanding of the crime scene
itself is the three girls that are found in the very back of the yogurt shop are
significantly more burned charred and damaged than amy ayers so where you're going to have a lot of
information about amy ayers that's simply due to her proximity to where the fire
started right right fire started in one location and it spreads through there from it spreads from there
well we have first responders arriving on the scene probably well not probably it's within minutes of the fire being
set we don't know exactly what time the fire was set but we do know that the place was not on
fire at 1103 when somebody hit that no sale button we had the fire being reported at 11 47 pm number 12 that amy
was strangled in what she was strangled with number 13. that amy was shot twice with two
different caliber guns all of our other victims were only shot once and as we said and as noted in who killed these
girls this list will have to be revised several times [Music] [Music] [Music] all right we are back
thank you for joining us you smell lovely cheers so there's so many things about this
case that make me wonder like did they have a plan that these attackers have a plan to
take out one of the victims right away so then they have less victims to try to control
possibly and it's it's a sad situation of course again we will never really know until the
proper person is found and locked up or persons or persons correct however i i think that we can
probably deduce some things about the the attackers and their actions and their plan
and this is one thing that i thought that has always been another misstep in this
investigation now i want to be clear here and give kudos where it should go and that should go to the austin pd in
this regard where austin pd basically said in this investigation we are only concerned about the who we
are not going to spend our whole time spending our tires on the why right so but sometimes the why
leads you to the who well and when you're sitting here at our position captain in a smelly
garage we have to examine the who what why when and how come i know i think i threw some
extra things in there that weren't necessary but you get that's what our show does we throw on a couple things
that are not necessary yeah so i think here when i review this what i'm seeing is a situation where
maybe you're not so worried about being outnumbered if you are the perpetrator right there's four girls
you're gonna be outnumbered unless you have four perpetrators or more the situation that you do have is we
have a lot of terrible things going on in a short period of time so there's a lot of moving parts and pieces within
the course of about 45 minutes it's really what i want to focus on and in 45 minutes we have sexual assault we have
terrorizing the girls we have robbery we also have an arson that's set and we have
the the perpetrators successfully fleeing the scene all within about a 45-minute span
now what that indicates to me if you're going to set an arson you're somewhat of
a sophisticated criminal and i don't mean people always get this wrong they think oh here nick goes calling some
maniac uh a brilliant individual i'm not saying that this was any type of high iq
criminal here or criminals i'm simply saying criminally sophisticated meaning that they understand that this fire will
destroy evidence that this fire will help this fire will increase the probability
and the likelihood that they are not caught and so this fire is set for that purpose
and that purpose alone well and also it's when you're calling somebody criminally sophisticated you're
basically saying they're they're a bigger douchebag they're a bigger ding dong ass frog you know
that's what you're saying it's not a compliment you're you're putting the individual down that means that this
dirtbag thought more about this crime and how not to get caught the other thing too that the arson indicates to me
is that high level of concern of being caught and getting away with what they did so you're going to want to not be
detected and gunshots are loud and this is a short period of time i don't think that you are using those
guns until you have to which would be at the very end when when you are done doing whatever it is that you set out to
do that is what you plan to do at the end right of those events no witnesses burn the place and flee
and so i think that the shooting and unfortunately the additional injuries to amy ayers
were items that were not necessarily planned but were necessary because she did not
and i i hate to even say these words but here you go she did not die when the others did every one of the
other girls we shot they died as expected amy ayers did not die as expected and therefore we end up with a second
gunshot we end up with the strangulation at some point and we have some of the medical
information that will back that thought up then assuming that the gunshots happened at different times yes
i don't believe for a second that she was shot at the exact same time with two different guns well not at the exact
same time i'm just you're saying that it could be seconds later though right i mean we're talking the amount
i'm not going to go into it because i don't have the the stomach for it and i don't have the heart to do it
but just sit back and think without forcing me to do this how many horrible crimes happen in a
span of just 45 minutes and that's being that's giving extra time i don't even think
they were there that long no and so you know you're you're doing things very quickly and the science that will back
up the thought of her being shot twice and why is simple amy ayers was shot through the
back of the head the same with the same 22-caliber gun used on the other girls but in her case the bullet did not enter
the brain right and so i think that is why we have she's reacting to this and then the killers are reacting to her
reaction you know we saw in the lane bryant shootings several people they're all laid down the same way face down on
the floor gun to the back of the head and one of them twitched or moved or something
happened and it didn't work it didn't kill one of them but it killed the rest of them but it's also possible that this
could be a sign that that there was uh soft bullets and meaning that those bullets would
have been bullets can become soft over time and so these bullets could have been older bullets that's possible yes
and the thing here too is a 22 caliber gun is typically used in a situation and i don't i don't want to paint the
picture of of anybody thinking that this is some type of mob hit a 22 caliber gun is
typically used in a crime where your plan is to shoot the individual in the head and kill them with one shot why
because most of the time a higher caliber bullet will do what is called a through and
through meaning that it enters the body at some point and it goes through the body and exits the body at some point
with a 22 caliber bullet you want to do you're looking to do as much internal damage as
possible if you want to kill somebody with one bullet so a 22 is often used because it's not powerful enough in most
cases to do a through and through shot it will go into the body and then it bounces off of a lot of stuff doing a
whole lot of damage in the process well i think it makes people wonder when looking into this case
are there separate victims is she separate from them yeah i don't see a situation here and again we don't know
we're kind of guessing here but i don't see a situation that one that there was even enough time to to do it in this
manner that that somebody went out of their way to kill one and then terrorize the other three or the reverse
of that kill the other three and terrorize one right for an extended period of time i'm seeing again
they're doing something that's necessary and what's really interesting here is that
we're talking about a difference of a few minutes and i mean this is sad and heartbreaking to think about
but the difference of a couple of minutes could be the time that goes by when they
learn that what killed the other girls didn't kill amy and so had they not figured that out in that
very brief time period she may have been able to get up and flee and i think that that's what she was in
the process of doing i think she she was crawling away from the other bodies i think she was shot originally
in the very same locale as the other three girls and at some point she's reacting to the
situation and crawled away or started to flee somehow mustered up the strength to
try to get away and unfortunately our killers are still in that room or still present
and have the awareness to see her reaction well it's also confusing because like you said law enforcement's
not going to sit around and try to figure out the why but maybe they're not going to try to
sit around and figure out the why because it seems very confusing in this case you have money left behind so
you have a room that they didn't even go into which has a safe you would think that if they
had much knowledge of this business at all that they wouldn't have left that bag of
money behind nor would they leave that safe behind so what was successful in killing the
other girls and was attempted on amy is what is called a contact gunshot wound this is where there is
evidence that proves that the gun was right next to or up against the skin right at the time that the gun is fired
do you have a gut feeling yourself because you know this is the second time that we've
been able to look it into this case do you have a gut feeling as to motive or or why unfortunately i think the motive
here was sexual assault and probably multiple sexual assaults that's what i leaned towards as well
it would not surprise me if these perpetrators were previously in the yogurt shop and that could be
earlier that day or could be the week before days before i think that they were well aware that this was the
type of location that is secluded is a weird word to use being that it's a public place but it's
secluded as soon as those doors are locked for the night as soon as you turn that key on on that front door
nobody's coming in and i think that this is a situation where they could have either the perpetrator stumbled upon an
ideal situation for what it was that they wanted to do or they came there knowing
or expecting to find that and that might mean that they scouted this location in advance the other thing
too when you go all right well maybe they stumbled onto a location in a situation that was ideal for what they
wanted to do you wonder where else they went that day and night looking for the ideal situation
you know did they walk down to mr gaddy's and go you know what there's too many males in here there's too many employees
working all at once let's try a different spot yeah or it could be it could be a situation where the look i
think this is possibly coming from a local individual and somebody that's been there multiple times
around closing time and went they're they're having high school girls close up the shop
this there's no there's no manager on a staff and on like you said seclusion sounds strange like you said because
it's a public place but first of all the the major places around there are shutting down at nine o'clock
the other places are shutting down at 10. so now that gives you a whole hour that
if you are from that area you know that place is one of the only places open past ten so now
that that's how it makes it even more secluded and it's a yogurt shop there's some sometimes when you go into a yogurt
shop or the last couple times i've gone into ice cream shop you're the only customer in there you
get your ice cream and you and you look you go and strangely captain this case reminds me a lot you know people think
of las cruces bowl or las cruces bowling alley that case when when right when you review austin
yogurt shop case and yes there's a lot of similarities and i'm not and i'm not here sitting pretending that they were
perpetrated by the same individuals in las cruces bowl we have a pretty good description of those who
the two men that carried out that crime but they are similar situations what i like in this crime too and if i
were to be air quotes here profiling our offenders and i think i i'm of the belief that you
are that we're looking at two people possibly three i cannot look at the evidence at the scene and
believe that one person carried this out i think that it gets difficult to go much higher than three as far as the
number of perpetrators but this crime reminds me a lot of the cheshire murders where we have two individuals that are
going into a home they know what to expect they know who they think will be inside of this home
and they sexually assault they murder and they attempt to burn down the place and
once caught they're going to try to sell it to the public that oh we were just there to rob
the family and things got out of control things got out of hand we panicked and then we
ended up killing three of the four family members and setting the place on fire what i would be looking for and you
don't want to i don't i'm all for profiling and i'm a big fan of it i guess you would say uh it
sounds like a really terrible choice of words but you know you don't want your theory or your thought process to
to put blinders on you in the course of your investigation but over the course of years when you don't have the answers
and you've not arrested someone you've not locked anybody up that sticks you got i think you've got to start
using those methods and what i would have been looking for is probably two individuals that were recently released
from prison and probably individuals that have committed similar types of crimes in the past and what i
mean by that is probably not murder but i'm probably looking for somebody one or two individuals with sexual
assault cases one or two individuals with robbery cases maybe one of them's a robber one
of them's sexually assaulted in the past that's kind of where what my gut tells me
to me it looks like a crime of not just opportunity by the perpetrators but also a crime
that they were they were looking to go out and do something maybe not of this magnitude but something horrific in
nature we've talked about this before you know with bundy and other types of individuals that some of these acts they
become addicted to it and i think what i'm seeing here is somebody that needed to do this for
whatever reason as disgusting as that is to say well my gut feeling tells me that
there was two attackers but i also think that it's possibly a local somebody that was making those
threatening phone calls or there was prank calls i think it's closer to home and maybe
more personable than people think it would be and also it's such a heinous crime that if
there's more than two attackers i think somebody would have told somebody by now somebody would
have confessed yes and that that's traditionally how it works the more perpetrators you have of a crime the
higher probability that one of them at some point tells somebody right i mean it's just it's just math
baby garage math and the thing is people do it because it either weighs on their conscience or they get drunk and
tell somebody or they they tell somebody in a threatening manner but yeah the number of
perpetrators the higher that goes up the higher your probability goes up that one
of them tells somebody and my guess is that at least one of these individuals is
currently in prison on rape charges yeah and here's the thing that i would really
like to know with that we talked about that dna evidence that the fbi has they've got a match or some kind of hit
on it and and i don't fully understand it not going to pretend to but um i would really like to know
where exactly that they got their hit i do want to touch on something captain before we get too far along here that
you had referenced earlier um one interesting tidbit that i found along the way in my
research for this week's case is that a woman by the name of rhys price i believe her real name is teresa
or therese price but she goes by rhys price at the time of the yogurt shop murders she was 24 years old she was a
manager that worked at that icby store for seven years the thing that i find interesting here
is that she was actually scheduled to work that night and a week or so in advance had made
arrangements with one of the girls that ended up working that night to trade shifts right now i'm not trying to paint
a picture of anybody came there looking for rhys price and this was the result but you said no manager on staff no
manager on duty this is a you know and i said an ideal situation for what it is that i believe they were looking to do
a 24 year old woman being the manager at this store doesn't change if you're scouting this
location i don't think that changes you from 217 year olds to go on nope can't do it here
nope you're you're correct if it's a sexually motivated crime yeah the other thing that i found interesting too in uh
rhys price's involvement with the austin pd she was god bless her she was very helpful to
their investigation and helped in any way possible that she possibly could one thing that that she
passed along to the detectives was she said you know me and one of the other girls we were
receiving harassing phone calls at the icby store and me and one of the other girls were
receiving similar types of calls at our homes at our residence and she had even told them that
there was a situation where she thought that she was hearing some noises when she was working one
night and she thought that the noises were coming from the roof that's creepy she goes into the men's restroom
remember they gotta clean up before they leave at night and she says later in the men's restroom
of that icby store that she found a ceiling tile that had been moved and on the toilet seat
found footprints or shoe prints on the scene that's a weird way to take a dump she's telling police
that it's her opinion that the noises that she heard was someone coming through the ceiling and dropping down into
the back part of their store her belief is that again this is like a strip plaza
it's her belief that you could access the icby store via ceiling from the connecting stores
this is something we we don't have to put a lot of thought in it it's not a theory that we have to circle underline
and go crazy about but it's something to consider and it's an interesting piece of this
investigation and it's interesting information that was passed along to the detectives yeah my gut feeling is
there's a lot more to this not not only are they getting threatening calls at work but the individuals that are making
those threatening calls to the two girls then figure out where they live and they
start making calls to their house that lead those things should be taken very seriously interestingly enough here
captain one thing that i find completely fascinating and i think that we sit here
and probably share the same belief today 30 years later is the prevailing theory in the austin
yogurt shop murders case and that prevailing theory seems to be that whoever those two men were sitting at
that booth at 10 47 p.m that night they most likely are the attackers and the killers now i
say most likely because we can't say it definitively what we do know is this that it took several months which is
kind of weird to me but it took several months for customers to come forward and
say hey i was this person i purchased this that night and i was in there about this time and this is what i think that
i saw or heard while i was there it did take you know weeks and months to collect all
those people and police were actively reminding the public hey we need you to come in here and tell us we it's very
important this is their words quote it's very important that they come forward we consider any knowledge from anyone
who was in that shop before closing to be very valuable police ask anyone with information to call and they give their
local police number but when we talk about these two individuals sitting at that booth it's
my understanding captain that those are the only two individuals that have never
come forward these are the only two people that we know to have been in the store that night based off of customer
testimonials that have not been identified right it could be and it is possible that these
two individuals were from out of town they were just there like every other customer with no
harmful intentions at all and they left before the store closed and they're not from the area and months
went by and they they just never came forward or didn't do not remember being there on
the night that was in question that is a possibility i think it's awfully slim but it certainly is a possibility if we
rule that out then we have to say these are these two are probably the killers and again i
think it's more likely that it's two killers and not just oh we're going to be in the store with the potential being
seen by other individuals and then once they lock the doors we're going to then open the back door open up
the front door to let another person in the only people ever convicted in this case
were the two individuals that eventually were released from prison and they were
convicted based off of their confessions and we could go through that but i don't
think that we should because you can listen to episodes 81 and 82 where we go through that muck and mire quite a bit
at the end captain what we have is of the four boys that were arrested too convicted
the guns did not match right it was a 22 caliber gun that led them that led austin pd to
these boys their 22 caliber gun they ran ballistics on it it does not match up with the 22
that was used at the yogurt shop murder so the guns didn't match and the dna didn't match
years after the murders advanced dna testing revealed a bombshell the bombshell that that nobody wanted we
were happy when two people were locked up for this case but those results showed that dna that was found on amy
ayers did not match any of the suspects and to be clear it didn't match anyone in any national
database so yeah the two that were convicted the dna that was found on our victim
does not match the two that was convicted it also does not match the two that weren't convicted the two that were
arrested and the charges were dropped right by the grand jury because they didn't believe that they
had enough evidence here so but also with such a horrible crime like this is truly
done by demons how many it's surprising to me how many confessions they have got yes and
you know austin police they readily admit that over 50 people approximately over 50 people
have seen yeah have confessed to this now i want to address something real quick here
if you look at wikipedia there's an entry that says that one of the confessions included kenneth mcduff
who's an individual that we covered extensively in episodes 81-82 he's a serial killer there's no question
about that here's where the question comes according to that wikipedia entry kenneth mcduff on the day of his
execution confessed to the yogurt shop murders i've looked high and was left dry my friend
could not find any credible publication or person stating that they heard him or
heard the confession heard this confession yes he did have some some last words but they did not include
anything about this case or what i could find any other case now he's certainly capable of
committing such horrific acts but again review episodes 81 and 82 we go into why we don't believe that he is our
guy so then the question becomes fbi has this dna why aren't they releasing it i mean they do they just
not have a match does it match somebody with a high profile is it does it match somebody that they have no evidence
against other than this this dna match wouldn't that be enough well i'm glad that you brought that up because let's
review that real quickly here again in 2017 another potential breakthrough emerge an
austin detective submitted dna evidence found in one of the victims into a database that searches ystr dna samples
a type of dna profile that forensic investigators use to identify male relatives of suspects
a match was found the austin police department requested more information about the identity of the matching donor
but the fbi has refused to release any information saying a federal statute so it's the federal statute that
prohibits it from disclosing identities of anonymous donors so i want to know more about what
is an anonymous donor right and i want i want to learn the ins and outs of that right despite these hurdles the families
have continued to work to keep the case in the forefront their efforts have led to new crime fighting initiatives at the
state and federal levels again citing that same article according to that article
that we cited at the top of yesterday's show there are over 19 000 unsolved homicides in texas
eliza thomas jennifer harveston sarah harbison and amy ayers are four of those unsolved homicide cases
when we talk about the yogurt shop case 30 years later we need to make sure that
we include some of the good stuff that happened in the story i'm talking about the austin community and the friends of
the four girls that made a promise to eliza jennifer sarah and amy and their families
and the promise was we will not forget on february 27 of 1992 just three months after the murders local celebrities
recorded a song titled we will not forget written by local musicians and dedicated to the
four slain girls all proceeds from the song were donated to a fund that was set up to help solve
the case on june 6 of 1992 six months after the murders the classmates of the girls at
the high school set up empty chairs for eliza and jennifer who would have graduated on that day
the great city of austin texas made a commitment to these four girls their families the community and the persons
responsible that they will not forget and in the garage we refuse to forget these girls
as well now it seems that the fbi has the power to help thousands of people heal
even if it's just a little bit and i understand that there are laws and regulations that are needed to protect
the people but here those laws and regulations are protecting the wrong people take a look
at these crimes these are some of the most horrific and unspeakable acts that we have ever
discussed on this show and it's five years of existence and all of these horrific crimes and unspeakable
acts were committed in no more than a short 45 minute time period the people protected by these laws and regulations
are not people at all they are the very worst of what humanity has to offer [Music]
thanks for joining us here each and every week in the garage if you're digging the music for the show
check it out for free on spotify amazon music or apple music it's free so check it out colonel do we have any
recommended reading for the listeners this week this week captain we are recommending what i believe is the
definitive book on the case that we covered this week the yogurt shop murders and this book is called who
killed these girls by beverly lowry and this book came out just shortly before the 25 year marker for this case and
covers the murders all the countless lives that this story has really ruined and the evolving
complications of the justice system that have frustrated the massive attempts for all these years now to find and
punish those who committed this horrible horrible crime check out who killed these girls by beverly lowry you can
find that great title and many more on our website truecrimegarage.com and click on the recommended page and until
next week be good be kind and don't listen [Applause] [Music] you

Yogurt Shop Murders - 30 Years Later /// Part 2 /// 540

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week we take a good solid look at a case that has weighed heavy on the hearts and minds of everyone in the Lone Star state’s capital city. The Austin Yogurt Shop Murders is one of most infamous cases in Texas history. Despite the efforts of the APD it remains unsolved thirty years later. Join us as we discuss the facts of the case and the timeline.

Beer of the Week - Best Maid Pickle Beer by Martin House Brewing Company Garage Grade - 4 and a half bottle caps out of 5

Our show - True Crime Garage “Off the Record” is available only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

The episode discusses the Austin yogurt shop murders, detailing the crime scene, victims, and investigation challenges.

Key points

Cheers to Our Friends. Nick raises a toast to supporters of the show, thanking them for their contributions.
Wholesale Carnage. APD sergeant Jon Jones describes the yogurt shop crime scene as 'wholesale carnage.'
Gruesome Crime Scene. Prosecutor Robert Smith warns that the crime scene details are particularly gruesome.
The Attackers' Motive. The discussion revolves around the attackers' potential motives and planning during the crime.
The Complexity of the Crime. Analyzing the rapid sequence of events and the sophistication of the crime.
The Victim's Struggle. Amy Ayers' tragic fate is examined, highlighting her struggle to survive.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This crime scene is particularly gruesome.

Prosecutor Robert Smith warning about the crime scene details.

6:34WatchDec 4, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.